


Must Love Cats

by HugeAlienPie



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cats, First Kiss, Growing Up, M/M, Motorcycles, Pre-Relationship, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, barcelona
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 21:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13349847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HugeAlienPie/pseuds/HugeAlienPie
Summary: Otabek Altin is a dog person until the day his soulmark comes in. Now he's trying as best he can to love cats.Yuri Plisetsky is born with a soulmark that sounds exciting.Dangerous. This... explains a lot about Yuri Plisetsky, actually.





	Must Love Cats

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to 2018, designated The Year of Actually Posting These Older Fics.
> 
> Remember that funny moment where Yuri yells, "What's with you, asshole?!" at Otabek across the hotel lobby? Yyyyeah, I somehow managed to _completely forget that_ when I had the idea for this. I remembered seconds later, but it was too late; the idea had wedged itself in my brain. So this is straight-up self-indulgent canon divergence right here. Enjoy!

_Dear Soulmate,_

_My name is Otabek Altin. I live in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I am three years old. My mom is writing this letter for me._

_I like dogs a lot. Do you? And snakes. Snakes are cool. I don't like cats much. My auntie has five, and one of them bit me. My dad says that's not the cat's fault, my auntie just isn't a nice person._

_I have words on my chest now. Right above my heart. Mom says that's good. The words weren't there yesterday. Mom says that means you were born last night while I was asleep. Happy birthday. The words are in Russian. Daddy got cranky about that, but then Mom said something that made him laugh, so I guess it's okay. Mom says you'll say the words to me someday, and that's how I'll know that you're going to be special to me, like she and Daddy are to each other._

_The words say, "Is that your cat?" I don't have a cat now, but maybe I will someday. I'm going to learn to like cats, so that when you ask me, I can say yes._

_Your soulmate,_

_Otabek Altin_

*

Yuri Plisetsky is born with a soulmark that wraps around his ankle. It says "Yuri, get on!" Once he gets old enough to understand what it means, both literally and in terms of life impact, he spends hours staring at it. He's not sure why, but it sounds exciting. _Dangerous._

If he puts himself into dangerous situations more often than is strictly healthy for a rising figure skating phenom, bringing Nikolai and Yakov to the verge of nervous breakdown time and again, well. He's trying to give himself his best possible chance to meet his soulmate. Same as anyone.

*

Otabek, age 13, stares at Yuri and his soldier's eyes. Yuri, age 10, glares back. At this point, the Altin household has three cats, a fact that might have interested Yuri. But he doesn't find out. They exchange no words.

*

Of the six skaters in the Grand Prix Final, Yuri's favorite (besides himself), is Otabek Altin.

When Otabek's on the ice, Yuri is riveted. It's not Phichit's showmanship or Christophe and Katsudon's very different, equally disgusting, but unfortunately undeniable seductions, and it's sure as hell not JJ's arrogant self-aggrandizement. Otabek skates with a raw and barely leashed power that never needs to brag or boast—it quietly but firmly announces its presence and refuses to let Yuri look away.

Yuri _will_ win gold here. But if Otabek isn't standing next to him on the silver medal platform, he's going to be pissed.

Also, Otabek rides motorcycles and is known to rent one in every city he competes in. Yuri's never seen it, but he likes picturing it, Otabek and his solemn face thundering around the world by motorcycle. Yuri likes the uncertainty of it. The _bravado_.

The mental image isn't bad, either.

*

By the time Otabek is eighteen and competing in the Grand Prix Final in Barcelona, he has a tiny apartment, two cats, and a motorcycle that is his pride and joy. He has tracked Yuri Plistesky's career with a fervor he doesn't entirely understand. He has been at least peripherally aware of the gradual creep of cat prints into Yuri's off-ice wardrobe and cat pictures into his Instagram stream.

He's been curious, of course he has. But he has _also_ been trying to become a world-class figure skater in a country without a lot of resources or infrastructure for it. He hasn't had time to wonder if a boy he hasn't seen in five and a half years could be his soulmate. What are the odds, anyway? A lot of people like cats.

*

Yuri's grandmother thought soulmate-finding websites were the biggest scam in human history. "Soulmates find each other when they need each other most," she said. "No computer in the world can rush that." It's a fairly common belief, although, as far as Yuri knows, no scientific evidence supports it.

Yuri _hopes_ it's true. Soulmates seem like more damned trouble than they're worth, but he supposes he's not _completely_ opposed to meeting his. Later. When he's ancient. Like, Viktor and Katsudon's age (although he and his soulmate will _never_ be like Viktor and Katsudon and their stupid gross love story). Yuri's not ready to meet them now. He's not ready to need anyone now.

*

There are so many of them, and they are _so loud_. They're barreling toward him, and he's got nowhere to go. Of all the ways Yuri has pictured himself dying, trampled to death by his own fangirls didn't make the list.

Yuri is regretting that he doesn't have time to text his grandfather and say "i love you take care of potya" when a tremendous roaring fills his ears, and a sleek black motorcycle swings into view.

For a second Yuri stares, dumbfounded. And then Otabek Altin of all people calls, "Yuri, get on!"

_Holy shit holy shit holy shit!_

The moment. The sentence. The words he's been waiting for literally his entire life. _Otabek fucking Altin is my goddamn soulmate, and I can't appreciate the moment because I'm being chased by rabid fucking fans._

"Yuri, _come on_!" Otabek yells. Yuri may be reckless, but he's not a fool. He catches the helmet Otabek throws his way, leaps onto the back of the bike, and holds on for dear life. _Bozhe moi, Baba_ , he thinks, _when you said soulmates find each other when they most need each other, I thought you were being metaphorical!_

Yuri is sharply aware that he hasn't said anything to Otabek. _My soulmate my soulmate my fucking soulmate,_ his mind chants, unable to unstick from this point. People have said it before, but he's never understood it until now: going second is _rough_. Being the one who knows first, who realizes that whatever comes out of your mouth has been with this other person, indelibly marked on their body, for a very long time.

Most people blurt out whatever comes to mind right away. They don't have the entirety of a painfully long motorcycle ride to consider what will go down in history as the first words they say to their soulmate. Yuri keeps his mouth shut and his arms tight around Otabek's waist. He feels Otabek's pure strength, the same that he displays on the ice. Yuri trembles, and he waits.

Otabek drives them around for what feels like hours, a circuitous route sure to stop even the most dogged pursuer. But when they finally stop and Yuri climbs off the bike with shaky legs, he's both startled and delighted to realize they're in Park Güell, less than half a mile from the alley where the Angels had him cornered. He grins and almost makes a joke about hiding in plain sight, but, _ugh, no_. He doesn't want _that_ as his first words to Otabek.

Maybe he should be blunt: "I think you may be my soulmate." No, too wishy-washy; sounds like fucking Katsudon. "Hey, asshole, you're my soulmate." More to the point. But maybe a dick move, even for him.

Yuri opens his mouth to say something great, he's sure. Then he freezes, mouth slightly open, as Otabek holds up a finger for him to wait. He wriggles his phone out of the pocket of his impossibly tight jeans ( _oh fuck this will **not** be a platonic match_ ). "One moment, please," he says. "I have to tell my coach that, whatever the internet says, I have _not_ kidnapped the Ice Tiger of Russia."

Yuri laughs and leans forward--and then whatever surely brilliant thing he was going to say to make Otabek adore him instantly (look, now is a crap time to meet his soulmate, but he doesn't want to _mess it up_ ) is lost forever as he catches sight of Otabek's lock screen, a girl about Yuri's age holding a brown and gray Persian cat. Instantly smitten and distracted, Yuri excitedly asks, "Is that your cat?"

 _Oh. Whoops._ Yuri supposes there are worse soulmate words. At least it's distinctive.

Otabek doesn't answer. When Yuri looks up, he sees it's because Otabek is laughing. There's a hysterical helplessness in the sound, like he can't _stop_ laughing.

"What the hell?" Yuri demands.

Otabek laughs harder, but he shakes his head and manages to say, "No. She's my sister's." Then he's off, laughing again.

For some reason, this time it sets Yuri off, too, and for a long moment they lean against the motorcycle, laughing uncontrollably at a joke only one of them understands. It takes them a long while to settle down, repeatedly setting each other off on new waves of laughter.

When they're finally under control, Yuri leans forward so his hair hides his face and takes a long look at Otabek. Yeah, okay. Yuri kind of won the soulmate game here. "So," he says sharply, "we're soulmates."

Otabek straightens. His levity vanishes. With this expression, the one Yuri's most used to seeing on him, his features are sharp but not harsh, serious but not cruel. Yuri likes this look, too. "I guess we are," Otabek says.

"Soulmates are gross," Yuri says, to be contrary.

Otabek's mouth twitches in something that might want to be a smile, but he's perfectly blank-faced as he says, "I guess they are."

Yuri looks up at him through a curtain of hair. He feels suddenly, inexplicably shy. "But you're kind of okay," he says. It comes out softer than he means it to.

Otabek looks at the sky, maybe to keep from laughing. "I guess you are, too," he says. He glances at Yuri and then away,

 _Shit_ , Yuri thinks suddenly. Under the leather and stoicism, Otabek's barely eighteen. He probably doesn't have much more of a clue what he's doing than Yuri does. It's a reassuring revelation, and it gives Yuri enough courage to step into Otabek's space and say, "Can I kiss you?"

Otabek looks over quickly, eyes wide, lips parted in surprise. He schools his face again, but Yuri's on to him now. He recognizes the glimmer in his eyes and the curl at the corner of his lips. "I guess it wouldn't suck," he concedes, and Yuri smacks Otabek's chest with the back of his hand. Otabek catches Yuri's hand in his own and smiles for real. Yuri's brain goes offline for a second, because, fuck, that's a beautiful smile.

And then Yuri is kissing that smile, soft and slow, a gentle meeting of lips and hearts. He swears the soulmark on his ankle pulses for a second. Yuri closes his eyes and tastes Otabek's lips, touches the stubbled line of his jaw, sinks into Otabek's arms as they come around his waist. He'd expected kissing his soulmate for the first time to be fireworks and a burning fire inside. But this, this is grounding and settling, soothing something inside that he hadn't known was restless. Yuri sighs happily, leans into Otabek a bit harder, and then pulls away.

He stays in Otabek's arms, looking up at him, smiling back as Otabek smiles at him, the smile he's starting to know as Otabek's _real_ one, not the camera-smile or the smug asshole smirk. Then Yuri frowns. "You _do_ have a cat, don't you?" he demands.

Otabek's smile widens. "I have two."

"Good," Yuri says decisively. "I couldn't be soulmates with someone who doesn't love cats."

Otabek laughs, a bemused younger cousin to his wild laugh from earlier. He hugs Yuri tightly and then lets go, taking his hand to lead them into the park. "They've been an... acquired love."

Yuri has no idea how anyone wouldn't just... _love cats_ , but he hears what Otabek's really saying. They're top competitors in an incredibly demanding sport. They live three time zones apart. Yuri's fifteen. It'll be tough, and it doesn't have to be _right now_. They have time. "An acquired love," he repeats, smiling. "I guess that wouldn't suck, either."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments and kudos welcome, even if you just want to say hi.
> 
> Big thanks to the perpetfic, the_wordbutler, and templemarker for, as always, listening to me natter on about tiny Otabek teaching himself to love cats for his soulmate. perpetfic also did the beta read. Y’all are the best. 
> 
> those who love me can take [the tumblr](http://hugealienpie.tumblr.com)


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